Blair Wallace, stalwart senior Royal Ulster Constabulary officer during the Troubles

Yahoo

28-04-2025

​Deputy Chief Constable Blair Wallace, who has died aged 87, was one of the most influential of the senior officers who led the Royal Ulster Constabulary through the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and enabled the force, with the assistance of the military, to hold the line.
Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the last Chief Constable of the RUC, said of him: 'When I was Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary I was often invited to inspect police forces throughout the Commonwealth, and many of the recommendations I made were on the basis of innovations introduced by Blair Wallace. Blair left an indelible mark upon Northern Ireland and even global policing.'
Daniel Blair Wallace was born on June 1 1937 in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, the youngest of six children of Thomas and Maggie. He at​tended Belfast Royal Academy, where he was an outstanding pupil, gaining his Senior Certificate aged 16.
Wallace had an uncle who had served in the Royal Irish Constabulary before the partition of Ireland in 1922, and this inspired his ambition to become a policeman and join its successor organisation, the RUC. Too young to join up, he worked as a clerk at Gallagher's tobacco factory in Belfast, at one time the largest in the world, until he enlisted at the first opportunity, in November 1955.
He trained at the RUC Depot in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, where officers destined for police forces all over the empire were trained. Recruits were not only taught the fundamentals of police work but also how to handle weapons, and they were imbued with the regimental-type ethos of the RUC.
Wallace later reflected that it was this esprit de corps which was in large part responsible for holding the RUC together while under sustained terrorist attack. More than 300 policemen and women were killed during the Troubles, and several thousand injured. In the 1980s Time magazine declared that being a member of the RUC was the most dangerous job in the world.
In the early 1970s the RUC had been temporarily overwhelmed but its morale never cracked. Wallace was to reflect after last year's Southport riots that UK police forces would come to regret the modern rejection of anything too 'military' in their ethos and their repudiation of esprit de corps as an essential element of policing.
After training Wallace was posted to east Belfast and in 1959, in an exceptionally fast elevation, was promoted to sergeant in the Reserve Force in Keady, Co Armagh, near the border with the Republic of Ireland. The IRA's 1956-62 campaign, sometimes referred to as 'the Border Campaign' was then well under way but it was small in scale compared to the Troubles that followed.
Postings to Rosslea in Fermanagh and Belfast followed before promotion to head constable and transfer to north Belfast, where he arrived in August 1969, just as the public disorder which heralded the outbreak of the Troubles was beginning.
Wallace was to see much disorder and terrorist violence over the next three years and he gained a reputation for leadership. He attended the scenes of numerous bomb explosions and murders and he himself was injured several times. In October 1969 he was present when the first policeman was killed in the Troubles and in February 1971 he helped carry the first soldier to be killed to an ambulance.
In June 1970 the RUC was reorganised along the lines of police forces in Great Britain and Wallace ceased to be a head constable and became a chief inspector. In 1974 he was promoted to detective superintendent and posted to Belfast Special Branch where his service was to have profound effect.
For Wallace, nothing but the highest standard was acceptable and he was instrumental in clearing away people who were not up to the demands of the job. It was said at the time that 'it is the job of the CID to investigate this morning's murder; it is the job of Special Branch to make sure that this evening's murder does not take place'. Therefore nothing but total commitment would suffice.
Large and physically imposing, Wallace could sometimes intimidate with his famous stares over his glasses. But he was always sympathetic and diplomatic when explaining to subordinates that their true vocation might lie in some other area of policing, and they were invariably able to leave with their heads held high.
Wallace was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the first Tasking and Coordination Group, a joint police and Army management team which controlled all aspects of covert intelligence gathering and exploitation. He pushed hard to obtain funding for essential equipment upgrades and better training and was at the forefront in pressing for legislative changes to enable terrorism to be properly tackled.
Throughout his career Wallace was renowned for his straight talking, but his obvious intellect and integrity meant that many of his opposite numbers in the Army and Security Service became friends for life.
In early 1978 he was promoted to Detective Chief Superintendent as Head of Belfast Special Branch and in 1984 to Assistant Chief Constable [ACC] South Region where he worked extensively with the Army. In 1988 he was promoted to Senior ACC in charge of the Crime and Special Branches and in 1992 to deputy chief constable.
Wallace was passionate about the RUC and steadfast in its commitment to providing a police service to all the people of Northern Ireland and he was uncompromisingly non-sectarian, pursuing both Republican and Loyalist terrorists with equal determination.
In May 1998 Wallace retired from the RUC after more than 42 years service. In retirement he was never happier than when tending his small herd of pedigree Limousin cattle, talking to old RUC comrades and spending time with his family.
Wallace was appointed MBE in 1983 and CBE in 1995. In 1997 he was awarded the Queen's Police Medal.
He is survived by his wife Heather, to whom he had been married for more than 61 years, and by their daughter.
Blair Wallace, born June 1 1937, died February 26 2025
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.